Booze and Bullets Revisited

On July 12, 2023, I posted an article entitled, “Booze and Bullets:  Mixing Whiskey and Hunting”  It focussed on the frequency with which pre-Prohibition liquor advertisements featured their products within a hunting motif.  As expressed by the bumper sticker above, drinking and hunting have a definite intimacy.  In the time since I have been able to gather other ads that make a similar point.

The first image leaves little to the imagination.  In this ad we see a hunter, shotgun at the ready, who has taken out a flask and is pouring himself a “snort” in the midst of his quest for game.  The text tells the story:  “A good time coming.”  Bagging his quarry is the only thing a sportsman enjoys more than the anticipation of “Cream of Kentucky Whiskey.”  This libation was a proprietary brand of the I. Trager Company of Cincinnati.  The company was being supplied by the Old Darling Distillery of Prestonville, Kentucky, and was in business from 1887 to 1918.

At left is a flask  and label of “Huntsman Straight Bourbon,” the product of the Wisconsin Liquor Company of Milwaukee.  Two hunters are about to join their dog by crossing a fence, a shotgun seemingly dangerously placed.  It suggests that the two have been nipping at their “Huntsman” already.  I have not been able to find much about the origins of this whiskey.  The Despres Company of Chicago sold a whiskey called “Old Huntsman.”

While the letterhead from R. B. Grainger Distilling Company does not overtly feature hunting, the Kansas City, Missouri, pre-Prohibition liquor house flyer that follows leaves nothing to the imagination.  It offers the public the a “handsome TRAVELERS FLASK with ALUMINUM DRINKING CUP with some extra fine OLD  R.B. GRAINGER Straight Kentucky Whiskey….This beautiful FLASK always comes in handy and they are especially convenient for your hip pocket when fishing and hunting….”   This company appeared in business directories from 1912 to 1917.

The Bernheim Brothers and their “I. W. Harper Whiskey” brought us the most subtle whiskey cum hunting image with the saloon sign shown here.  It has all the   familiar accessories of the well-decorated hunter’s cabin, replete with pelts, guns,  boots and a dog.  The I.W. Harper sign is hung discretely from trophy antlers and a wicker covered I. W. Harper jug sits awaiting on a table.  The colorful lithograph on tin is entitled “Here’s Happy Days.”

“Old Joe Perkins” was a whiskey from the Perkins & Manning liquor house of Owensboro, Kentucky.  They were “rectifiers,” mixing up whiskey received from a variety of Kentucky distilleries to create the desired taste, smoothness and perhaps even color.  The partners may have been doing their blending right at the providing distilleries, advertising that their whiskey was available by the barrel or in glass bottles by the case.  This image on a serving tray is a visual joke.  The hunter has killed a duck and instead of bringing him the bird, his dog has fetched a bottle of “Old Joe Perkins” to present him.

When Ohioans look around for the state’s most desirable whiskey bottles, the “Old Nimrod Rye,” shown here, should rank high on the list.  It was the brainchild of Leopold Adler who operated a wholesale and retail liquor house for almost three decades in Cleveland.  The liquor dealer registered this name and bottle image with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 12, 1905.  The description on Adler’s application  reads: “A representation of the head of a barrel having thereon the picture of  a man aiming a gun at a bear which stands erect beside a tree with a log in front of him, associated with the words “Old Nimrod Rye Whiskey, Rich, Pure.”

Old Scenter was far and away Henry L. Griesedieck’s flagship brand.  The large sign here was given to saloons carrying his whiskey and indicates what the name meant.  The picture shows a stage coach passing a group of riders returning from the hunt.  With them are their hounds, some of them sniffing.  They clearly are the “scenters.”  A ghost-like billboard declaring “Drink Old “Scenter” Rye” appears on a stone wall behind the tableau.  At age 33 Henry had opened his wholesale liquor establishment located at 713-715 North Sixth Street in St. Louis — the address for its entire business life.  The success of this enterprise may be judged by the fact that within three years Griesedieck had opened a second liquor store at 19 South Six Street.

In 1884 Paul Jones, a forner Confederate officer, relocated from Atlanta to Louisville as a whiskey wholesaler.  Five years later when a local distillery came up for sale at a bankruptcy auction, he bought it for $125,000 and never looked back. With an assured supply of whiskey the Paul Jones Company became one of America’s largest distilling organizations.  Jones provided his client saloons with plenty of decorative signs for their walls, including this picture of dead fowl.

 This addition of another eight hunting motif whiskey ads, labels, and artifacts to those already posted provide ample testimony to the strong links that have existed for time immemorial  between alcohol and hunting — a relationship as fresh as the present.  The moral is:  If you don’t have a gun, stay out of the woods during hunting season and maybe even if you do.

Note:  A several of the “whiskey men” featured here have merited longer biographical treatment on this website in the past.  More detailed biographies may be found at:  Trager, July 10, 2019; Bernheim, Dec. 10, 2014; Griesedieck, Nov. 29, 2014, and Paul Jones, September 4, 2014.